The Miami Dolphins’ owner and top executive have spent the better part of five days blasting House Speaker Will Weatherford since their bid for public funds to renovate Sun Life Stadium died on the House floor Friday night in Tallahassee.

On Tuesday, Weatherford fired back, denying assertions by Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and CEO Mike Dee that he had promised to bring the bill to a vote and expressing significant doubt that the House would have passed it.

“At no point during the process were any promises made to hear the Dolphins Stadium bill on the House floor,” Weatherford, a Republican from Wesley Chapel, said in a statement. “It’s no coincidence that we haven’t heard about this so-called commitment until after the bill died.”

Dee had said that Weatherford put political motives ahead of the people’s right to vote.

“We don’t view it as what the Legislature did. We view it as what Will Weatherford did,” Dee said Sunday. “This abuse of power, I believe, will follow his career for a long time.”

“The feedback from Miami-Dade was negative and there were concerns expressed by members on both sides of the aisle,” Weatherford said. “It’s not the fault of the Florida Legislature that Dolphins’ management failed to win legislative approval to force taxpayers to upgrade Sun Life Stadium after paying for a local referendum. Some would call that putting the cart before the horse.”

lol Yeah! Down with those lousy Republicans cause everyone knows only Democrats think correctly. Republicans want to pick on some guy because there is not a convenient Democrat to bash because that is just what they do. We can tell because all of the Republicans on this site act this way. Sick 'em PR.

Have you ever seen a politician fight before? Well, besides Manny Pacquiao?

Bottom line is this: The bill cruised the Senate and Ross swears they had the votes to make it cruise through the House bring it to the people. I believe Ross when he says Weatherford said it would hit the floor for a vote. I also believe Ross has a major problem putting up the money to get this issue on the ballot.... money that he won't get back. This scumbag Weatherford bypassed the democratic process. Now his defense is he wasn't going to put a referendum on the floor that would make tax payers in Miami-Dade pay for upgrades to the stadium. First it was a referendum for them to VOTE THEIR CHOICE. Second he makes it sound like the referendum would have taken money from starving working families.

It was a one cent tax on hotels and tourism. Stay with me here if Jax fans can petition Obama to make Jax hire Tebow, Then why can't we petition for Weatherford to be fired? We are talking about the head of the legislation deciding that the people of Miami Dade didn't deserve the right to cast their vote because he knew better. H e bypassed the democratic system, made a decision that best suited his agenda, denied the people the right to choose, and acted. In other countries he would be known as a DICTATOR. Yet he knows after a while this will go away the press will move on and he can do it again. He needs to be held accountable for what he did and his reasoning, after it blew up in his face, to the American people. He didn't expect Ross to raise so much hell. Lets kick this scum bag while he's back peddling before he slithers away.

As far as proirities go this should rate right up there with a zit on his or Ross' a$$. Now i do think that this guy did something not trust worthy but that is what I would expect from a politician no matter what party he is in (no matter what msnbc & fox tells me). But I am not also going to beleive what Ross and Dee are feeding me either. If this were not the Dolphins the fact that a bill got killed would not even make news and that includes bills that make sense. Just pay for it yourself. You will reap the financial rewards and repair your image.

Yeah rock. The truth is if was a democrat, he would have handed Ross a blank signed check. Serious though, it should have gone up for vote. One cent or not, that money can go to 100 other things besides stadium upgrades. I still believe that Ross should invest his own money into his business, hell, let me pass a bill to get a business going with public funds. The NFL is to blame too, holding cities hostage with superbowl bids.

House Republicans, led by Speaker Will Weatherford, blocked the effort before closing the session Friday. Weatherford opposed Medicaid expansion even though his own family were once the beneficiaries of Medicaid. Weatherford did so for, what most are saying, purely political purposes to establish himself among extreme right-wing and Tea Party Republicans who oppose anything included in the Affordable Care Act. Weatherford is against the idea of a special session:

"I don't know what it would achieve," Weatherford said. "Unless there was an agreement of what the session would do, calling one doesn't make sense. We would have to have some agreement on policy, other than drawing down on federal funds."

House Republicans, led by Speaker Will Weatherford, blocked the effort before closing the session Friday. Weatherford opposed Medicaid expansion even though his own family were once the beneficiaries of Medicaid. Weatherford did so for, what most are saying, purely political purposes to establish himself among extreme right-wing and Tea Party Republicans who oppose anything included in the Affordable Care Act. Weatherford is against the idea of a special session:

"I don't know what it would achieve," Weatherford said. "Unless there was an agreement of what the session would do, calling one doesn't make sense. We would have to have some agreement on policy, other than drawing down on federal funds."

This will hurt the South Florida economy in my opinion. The upgrades to the stadium would have created hundreds of jobs in the short term and created even more in the long term when future Super Bowls and other large events would have been brought to the new stadium. This is unfortunate. The people of that area will likely see the team depart. Look no further than San Francisco building its new stadium over 40 miles away because of similar problems like this. I wouldn't be surprised to see Ross up and move the team several miles away.

This will hurt the South Florida economy in my opinion. The upgrades to the stadium would have created hundreds of jobs in the short term and created even more in the long term when future Super Bowls and other large events would have been brought to the new stadium. This is unfortunate. The people of that area will likely see the team depart. Look no further than San Francisco building its new stadium over 40 miles away because of similar problems like this. I wouldn't be surprised to see Ross up and move the team several miles away.

He doesn't have to move it several miles away.

The stadium is only several feet away from the Dade-Broward county line.